Chancellor Adds 2 School Days, Cutting Teacher Training Time

In his first attempt at improving instruction for New York City schoolchildren, Chancellor Joel I. Klein has added two days to the coming school year, time that had been set aside for teacher training.

The last-minute change comes on top of a switch to earlier starting times for students, with most schools opening roughly 20 minutes earlier. The earlier starting times, a result of teacher workweeks that will be 100 minutes longer this year, creates logistical hurdles for teachers and parents alike. Most, though, were informed of the schedule change in June, school officials said, so they have had time to prepare.

Just yesterday, however, Mr. Klein informed school principals that two days that had been set aside for training -- Sept. 27 and Dec. 13 -- would now be regular school days, meaning many students will be in the classroom 184 days a year, 4 more than the state requires.

While two extra school days is not a lot in the scheme of things, several longtime educators said yesterday that it was symbolically significant, especially because it was Mr. Klein's first major policy change. The school system has long been criticized for spending too much time and money outside the classroom. By adding two days of school from the outset, the new chancellor is reminding the system that teaching children is its paramount priority.

In the recent past, New York City schools have had up to six so-called professional development days per year, when students stayed home and teachers attended workshops meant to improve their skills. Parents often complained about the loss of instruction and the inconvenience associated with professional development days, and many teachers even grumbled that the days were often poorly organized and useless. In one infamous case last year, the Queens High School District scheduled workshops in aromatherapy, yoga and bird-watching.

This year, Mr. Klein, a former federal prosecutor who was Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's handpicked choice for chancellor, is allowing only one training day, on Election Day. In a plainly worded memorandum, Mr. Klein said the decision made sense because half the additional work time negotiated in the new contract was devoted to teacher training.

In the memorandum, Mr. Klein also told superintendents and principals it was up to them to decide which students would receive the 50 extra minutes of instruction a week. Mr. Klein's predecessor, Harold O. Levy, had ordered that only the weakest students get the extra instruction -- and only in small-group tutorials. But the Bloomberg administration responded angrily, saying that the extra time should not necessarily be limited to those students, and Mr. Levy backed down.

In his memo, Mr. Klein said: ''I strongly encourage superintendents to structure the use of the extended time to best meet the academic needs of students in their respective districts and to maximize the discretion given to school principals in meeting these needs.''

Mr. Klein's decision to let principals and superintendents decide which students should get extra instruction -- and what exactly those lessons should consist of -- says a lot about his management style, not to mention that of his boss, Mr. Bloomberg, who wrested control of the school system this spring. Mr. Bloomberg has supported giving principals more autonomy since he first announced his mayoral campaign, saying that it would help him hold schools accountable for their students' performance.

''If you want real accountability, you have to give some decision making to the people you want to hold accountable,'' said Seymour Fliegel, a former deputy superintendent in East Harlem who is now the president of the Center for Educational Innovation-Public Education Association. ''This is a good step.''

Principals also welcomed the change, saying that 50 minutes a week of professional development would be more useful than occasional daylong workshops. Several principals also said they were thrilled to have discretion over which students received extra instruction, because they wanted to help more students than Mr. Levy's plan would have allowed.

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''It's a step in the right direction,'' said Anthony Lombardi, the principal of Public School 49 in Middle Village, Queens. ''I want to maximize this time in terms of how many kids it can reach.''

Mr. Klein started his job on Aug. 19, and his most pressing responsibility is ensuring a smooth opening to the school year. This year, that involves figuring out the logistics of the newly lengthened school day -- no easy task in a system with 1,100 schools, 80,000 teachers and 1.1 million students. One of the big questions that remains is exactly how the additional time will be parceled out over the course of the school year, and how it will affect the schedule of every student and teacher.

William P. Casey, the acting deputy chancellor for instruction, said yesterday that most schools would probably delay the additional instruction time until after Thanksgiving because they would need more time to figure out what it would consist of and which students to spend it on.

For the first three months of school, Mr. Casey said, teachers will devote all 100 extra minutes per week to professional development. Then, from December through April, they will devote all 100 extra minutes to instruction. For most teachers, this would mean working 50 additional minutes after school, two days a week. Mr. Casey said much of the added instruction would probably focus on test preparation, which makes sense given that standardized tests are generally taken in the winter and spring.

Mr. Casey also said that parents would have at least two weeks' notice if their children were chosen for extra instruction. He said that parents were informed in June about the plan to start the school day earlier, but that they would receive a number of reminders over the next few weeks, including automated phone calls.

He said that many schools that ran from 8:40 a.m. to 3 p.m. would likely hold classes from 8:20 a.m. to 2:40 p.m. Teachers will get the extra training two days a week, from 2:40 to 3:30, he said. Later this fall, when it came time for the extra instruction for students, the students chosen would stay until 3:30, Mr. Casey added.

The teachers' union insisted on a provision in the new contract stipulating that teachers cannot be forced to work past 3:30.

In the biggest exception to the new schedule, the city's 62 split-session high schools, where days already go as late as 7 p.m., will not parcel the 100 extra minutes into two 50-minute sessions a week. Instead, those schools will simply add 20 minutes to each school day. They will also keep Dec. 13 as a professional development day.

Randi Weingarten, the teachers' union president, said yesterday that she welcomed Mr. Klein's decision to let principals determine how many students receive the extra instruction. ''The former chancellor micromanaged which kids were going to get these services,'' she said. ''How the extra instruction works and who gets it, those decisions should be made on a local basis.''

As for the decision to eliminate two of the three previously scheduled professional development days, Ms. Weingarten said that most teachers would welcome it. ''It was a mixed bag,'' she said of the workshops. ''When it was done the old-fashioned way, with the principal or a guest speaker droning on for hours, people hated it.''